King vs Burwell, could this be a bad deal for republicans?

LCpl Mark Lefler — Fri, 15 May 2015 16:45:48 -0400

I was reading this and other articles, this may gut obamacare but without a good solution where does this leave republicans standing with a lot of voters who suddenly have no subsidies. I'm not a fan of the republican party but even if it wasn't republicans pushing for it, my view is if someone/someones want to get rid of something, it might be a good idea to have a good alternative other then "it sucks".

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/05/15/republicans-brace-for-for-glorious-victory-over-obamacare/

Republicans brace for glorious victory over Obamacare

A leading House Republican comes out against any fix to subsidies.

Response by GySgt Wayne A. Ekblad made May 15 at 2015 4:49 PM

GySgt Wayne A. Ekblad — Fri, 15 May 2015 16:49:05 -0400

Hell, I am absolutely convinced the Republicans are going to hand this election to Clinton (assuming she remains the presumptive Democrat candidate) through infighting and pure stupidity.

Response by MSG Brad Sand made May 15 at 2015 5:12 PM

MSG Brad Sand — Fri, 15 May 2015 17:12:59 -0400

If the Republicans said the sky was blue the Democrats would say the Republicans are lying to the American people, and vice versa. The only time they seem to be telling the truth is when they say the other guy is lying.

The one thing everyone seems to forget that is the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) does not provide any plan for care and is not affordable. It is really only an additional tax for people not buying health insurance. The only people winning on the whole thing was insurance companies...and they are supposed to be evil right?

How about this for a plan. We expect adults to act like grown ups. You either get health insurance for yourself and family OR you shut up when you get sick or injured?

Cannot afford insurance...then let me see your cell phone, cable plan, nails, tattoos, ETC and if you are not bleeding out money for those, I will find you help.

Response by LCpl Mark Lefler made May 15 at 2015 5:40 PM

LCpl Mark Lefler — Fri, 15 May 2015 17:40:54 -0400

This thread isn't going how I ment it to, I was more trying to start a debate about how, and really it could apply to any debate of this kind... that if a person/persons are going to say something sucks regardless of the reasons that they should have a plan of their own before dismantling something.

Response by PO1 Dustin Adams made May 15 at 2015 6:07 PM

PO1 Dustin Adams — Fri, 15 May 2015 18:07:33 -0400

ACA is slowly killing itself although at the cost of 100's of millions of dollars to the taxpayers.

Dem's want to blame the GOP for the subsidies SNAFU but it sits squarely on their shoulders, they wrote and passed a unilateral law without any idea of how it would be implemented. With the subsidies, the administration (on the face of it), was in violation of the law - the Supreme Court will be the final verdict on that.

The ACA as it is, is not sustainable. The formula the insurance companies presented showing lower insurance costs is a farce, it is overly dependent on a greater than available number of healthy insuree's premiums to offset the cost of those using the insurance in order to maintain profitability. It is also cheaper to pay the IRS fine than the insurance premiums for most young healthy single Americans and the evidence shows a lot are paying the "tax" penalty.

The state exchanges are folding after sucking in 100's of millions of dollars of tax payer money. Hawaii looks to be the 5th/6th state exchange to fail and fold.

The number of uninsured has only had a small improvement, depending on whose data you look at it is around 20-30% of the previously uninsured have gotten insurance. Number one reason for not getting it, is cost. Most of the people touted in the governments numbers as having gotten insurance through the exchanges (state and federal) are those that lost their insurance because of the ACA.

One long lasting fix would be to get away from the "business" of medicine run by administrators and insurance companies and turn health care back over to the doctor's to practice it.

Response by SSG Trevor S. made May 15 at 2015 7:03 PM

SSG Trevor S. — Fri, 15 May 2015 19:03:32 -0400

Why does it need to lay on Republican shoulders? The last time I checked they didn't get much say about what was in the law in the first place. Republicans offered a few alternative solutions that were bullied out of debate or not even allowed debate by Democrat leadership. Here is an article on the alternative efforts that were ignored during the time of the ACA's passage.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/08/28/seriously-the-republicans-have-no-health-plan/
My question to you, if we are paying subsidies for people to afford it, is it really affordable?

Seriously? The Republicans Have No Health Plan?

It’s arguably the favorite myth of progressives, the oft-repeated claim that Republicans have no health plan. Hence, President Obama was fully justified in ignoring them and proceeding to enact a comprehensive health reform law on a strict party line vote—something completely unprecedented in American political history. Karl Rove last week did an excellent job of countering that myth in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. For those who may have...

Response by SSG Gerhard S. made May 15 at 2015 8:09 PM

SSG Gerhard S. — Fri, 15 May 2015 20:09:35 -0400

Clearly it's NOT affordable. Nothing meaningful has been done to reduce the costs of Healthcare under the ACA, and government subsidies ALWAYS have the same result of causing the price of the subsidized product or service to remain high, or go even higher as more dollars are chasing the same, or fewer products or services at a PERCEIVED lower (subsidized) price. The Law of supply and demand still applies.

Response by CPT Jack Durish made May 15 at 2015 8:53 PM

CPT Jack Durish — Fri, 15 May 2015 20:53:09 -0400

The Affordable Care Act (of which "The" is the only accurate description) was doomed to failure. It was an attempt to create a single payer system without including the single payer provision which is necessary to insure universal coverage. The Republicans would have served their cause far better had they simply sat back and allowed the failure to occur on its own. Sadly, they have contributed just enough snark from the sidelines for the Democrats to transfer blame to them.

Interestingly, the government-run system was the subject of national scholastic debate when I joined my college debate team in my freshman year (1960). I heard many more reasonable suggestions during those debates (none of which found their way into the Democratic plan).

Response by Sgt Aaron Kennedy, MS made May 15 at 2015 10:50 PM

Sgt Aaron Kennedy, MS — Fri, 15 May 2015 22:50:53 -0400

The ACA is a "dividing" issue. It is so wildly unpopular that it should have never become law. That doesn't mean it didn't have some good pieces and some good Intent, but when 50% of the country doesn't want something, it probably shouldn't be forced on them.

Since it was passed, it has had countless lawsuits against it. It has had countless attempts to have it revoked legislatively. Like motorcycle accidents, it's not if, but when. Let's not fool ourselves, the ACA is going away. It's just a matter of time, and both parties will blame each other for it.

Before anyone accuses me of playing party favorites. I don't actually care. From a pragmatic standpoint, it's just "Bad Law." Good Intentions be damned, it was Bad Law. It was doomed to fail. It was unsustainable, as written, and it was going to implode.

I'll happily debate why we should or shouldn't take care of people (no we shouldn't let people die in the streets. And We $#&# don't). I'll happily debate why this does or doesn't make anything more affordable (it depends on which side of the equation you are on). But when it really boils down to it, was this law (as written) sustainable? The answer to that is No. In very simple terms No. It had too many flaws, and if you pulled the wrong thread, it unraveled the entire thing.

King v Burwell just happened to be the most recent thread. It was almost the Individual Payer requirement a few years back. If it isn't King, it will be something else in a couple more years. This law is build on a foundation of sand, and it will crumble, because it's bad law.

As for needing a replacement before getting rid of it? Horsepucky. You should get rid of bad law as soon as you identify it. Don't let it fester. That's how you end up having people relying on bad law. Then it becomes "too big to fail" and we become reliant on broken #%^#%^ machines, much like we're reliant on the broken #%^^#$& Dept of the VA.

Response by Maj Private RallyPoint Member made May 26 at 2015 6:20 AM

Maj Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 26 May 2015 06:20:10 -0400

I have no idea how it will fair for Republicans. The GOP has so many factions that I don't think general statements can be made about them anymore.

From the libertarian perspective, it disturbs me that people assume gov't must have a "solution" to healthcare, or that gov't must put some sort of system in place. It worries me that so many people fail to see how many things function perfectly well without the gov't telling them how to do so, or how many complex systems develop out of business necessity rather than by central planning. That a great many systems function in spite of gov't involvement rather than because of it.

Personally, it would be my dream come true that there was no "solution" from Washington for our healthcare. It is one of the, if not the, most heavily regulated and interfered-with sectors of the economy. The enforcement of an insurance-based payment system shields the involved parties from market forces, incentivizing inefficiency. Demand is better expressed to providers via lawsuits rather than with where consumers take their money. Supply is thrust upon consumers based on whatever plan they have. Endlessly increasing regulations and Medicare pricing codes force providers to spend money on hiring lawyers and clerks whose entire jobs revolve around making sure the providers color between ever more convoluted lines. I'd bet that healthcare costs would come crashing down and quality would skyrocket over the course of a decade or two if the healthcare system was left to "regulate" itself, without any input from the gov't except provision of the judicial system for malpractice and the like. And that can be handled at the state level, definitely not the federal.

Response by 1LT Aaron Barr made Mar 22 at 2016 8:02 AM

1LT Aaron Barr — Tue, 22 Mar 2016 08:02:24 -0400

Frankly, the Republican's reactions to this abortion of a law are a large part of the reason Trump's doing so well. The Republican establishment has no spine, no balls, no heart and no brains; the power of the purse was the only real power they had. They could waste time passing repeal after repeal of this law that they knew would never clear the Senate, let alone get to Obama's desk for a veto, but when it really came to it, they funded it.